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SHE WATCHED HER DAD with an awe born of love. He was such a handsome man, and she wondered if someday her children would resemble him. He was tall with broad shoulders and large muscular arms- she loved it when they wrapped around her, or lifted her high into the air- although, now that she was getting older, that didn’t happen so much- but most of all, she loved his beautiful crystalline blue eyes and the tiny laugh lines that formed beside them as he laughed with her or smiled at her. A wave of contentment washed over her. Just as soon as it appeared, it disappeared, and she felt an overwhelming sense of alarm. With a deep breath in and then out, she blew off the feeling, continuing to watch him.
As she looked on, her feeling of foreboding grew. Something wasn’t quite right. He was agitated, angry. What in their conversation had turned him that way? Suddenly, his knife was drawn, and he slashed down against his palm with fury. She watched the skin tear open and blood pool in his hand. He was chanting now, in a language she couldn’t understand, but the hairs on her arms stood up, and she knew it couldn’t be good.
“Daddy, wait.” He didn’t listen. Didn’t even acknowledge her. Almost like he couldn’t hear her.
She moved closer, worry making her tiny body shiver. His body shifted, and then she saw it, the golden mist that swirled up from his hand. Then another swirl of mist, this one silver, moved to join it. The magic swirled up into the air, until the two colors became one. Their hands moved together in the gesture of a handshake, but the sparkling mist shot out and slammed into her chest before she could move. Rattled, she shook her head, but a haze seemed to have fallen over her. She moved away, as if of her own accord, but it was more than that. Something was pulling her, pushing her, to the man at the window. One step, two, she moved closer still with no control of her own.
He was younger than she’d originally thought, and her young heart skipped a beat as she stepped closer still. Her chest was rising and falling too rapidly for comfort, but she took one hand and placed it gently inside of his much larger one. He turned to look at her, his mossy-green eyes haunted by something that was beyond her years for comprehension. His handsome face distorted by an anguished look, “I’m sorry, little one. This is no life for you.” Then he squeezed her hand and was gone. Just gone. Like he’d vanished into midair, and the feeling of loneliness became an ache in her heart, like none she’d ever felt before, the sorrow of loss. Deep. Profound.
Teagan woke up to someone shaking her so hard she bounced up and down on her old mattress with broken springs. She swiped a hand across her face and was stunned to feel tears at her eyes. Dreaming. She must have been dreaming.
“Teagan, wake up,” she heard Cali whisper.
“I’m up, Cali. What do you want, and can’t it wait till tomorrow?” Teagan groaned.
“No, you were dreaming again. You were loud. I didn’t want them to hear you.”
She sat up in the twin-sized bed and pulled the thin blanket up to her chin.
“Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Was it him again?” Cali asked, her voice wistful, and she looked out the window to the moonlight beyond.
“Yes.” Her gaze followed her friend’s, but all she could see was his face. The anguish, his eyes. She’d memorized that face. He’d been appearing more frequently in her dreams lately. She didn’t know who he was, but she knew deep down in her heart she was supposed to be with him.
She flung the covers off and slipped out of the groaning bed. Her bare feet hit the cold tiles of the floor, and she winced at her lack of foresight. Slippers would have been welcome, but she moved towards the window anyway.
“Somehow, I know he’s out there.” She turned sharply. “Does that make me crazy?”
“Does what make you crazy?” her friend asked.
“Thinking... No, knowing he’s alive, and I need to find him,” Teagan said.
“Yes and no?” Cali phrased it like a question.
“Cal, you can’t answer a question with a question.” Teagan countered.
“I can if I want to.” She laughed. “Come on, get dressed.” Cali threw some pants at her, and she caught them, barely.
“What the-?”
“We’re going out. Clubbing. You need a night of release. You need to meet a man.”
“We can’t Cal, curfew.”
A wicked smile crossed her friend’s face. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Cali?” Teagan’s voice firmed like she meant business.
“Alright, so I might have given Ms. P one of my sleeping pills, or three.”
“Cali!”
She laughed. “What, I’m tired of being stuck in here all the time. A girl’s got to spread her wings sometimes. Unwind. Get laid.”
“I g-e-t it. You don’t have to explain,” Teagan grumbled.
“So, you’ll come?”
“Fine, but back by twelve.”
“Eye, eye, Cinderella, back by midnight.” Cali stood with a goofy grin, her saluting hand not even remotely close to the right position, and Teagan couldn’t help but giggle at her. In fact, she didn’t know what she’d ever do without her friend?